This Financial Times article picks up a bit on something I heard someone else mention last week at the SES conference -- that the search engines might face revenue losses as the housing marketing in the US slows, in particular because of issues with subprime lending. Microsoft is quoted as saying much subprime advertising has gone away but that so far, search revenues broadly remain strong.7 Comments

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aA6I_Yl30K54&refer=news that I just came across has Google saying the credit crunch in general isnt a problem for them, since they deliver the most measurable advertising out there (ie, versus radio, TV, etc.)
I agree. Ive long talked about search being a success at the depth of the dotcom/ad crash a few years ago, because you still have to advertise, and it was cheap and worked. Its more expensive now, but you can still tell what goes in and what you earn coming out.
In terms of housing, Google said housing industry ads havent been cut.

When I was in the car business you could tell how tight the local economy was with their money by how thick the PhotoAd was. The less money in the market the more dealerships would spend to try to get the little bit out there. I think Realtors and mortgage brokers work the same way.
A slump might actually be good for us Search Marketers because it will force businesses to consider new ways of advertising their business that they over looked when times were better. Ive been seeing a big increase in small businesses looking for Adwords Services that would have never considered it a year ago. They realize that it is relatively inexpensive and trackable making for a good investment.

I agree that the ability to measure results with search, means that a housing slump may help us. In recent years advertisers have just increased their traditional advertising budgets to include search. In tighter times where choices have to be made, we may find that bigger advertisers start to shift budget over to search as opposed to just increasing existing budgets. Ive been seeing some evidence of this already with some clients moving budget from call centres and print to the lower CPA opportunities that search can offer.

Saw a report today with negative figures for classified advertising in major print newspapers. The dip in the housing market is expected to affect that print advertising significantly. Im with the theme here that more will move towards online methods, with some finding it difficult to return to print, after gaining comfort from successful online campaigns.

For generations the advertising budget was usually the first to be eliminated during similar situations. However, many of the companies listed are quite aware that the costs to create a television commercial, such as those run by Capital One, are substantially higher than it is to run an Adwords campaign. If anything were to happen, it would be a loss of personnel to run the PPC campaigns either by total restructure or by selected layoffs - such is the case with all levels of market crashes.
If you think about it, online advertising costs are determined by demand, lowered costs on clicks would be a definite impact on overall search income, but not so much that there would be a complete melt down as the article seems to be predicting.

That is a fascinating article from a business and industry perspective. Who would have imagined that one sector is so significant? After all, internet ppc ads have no boundaries, no limits, and can cover infinitely more items and topics than any other media source.
The engines will know before the public if a drop in financial service advertising will income their revenues. The public will get a grasp of it with the next set or two of quarterly financial reports.
Wow, its an interesting phenomena. Maybe it will cause the engines to build significant sales forces to sell advertising as all other media already do.
I guess its something we will learn about in greater depth over the next six months.
What we dont know, nor does anyone at this point is if the current debt problem from mortgages will spread via a credit crunch throughout the economy as it did in the early 90s.
This will be fascinating to see if it hits the SEs pocketbooks.
Dave

The article is too limited - the problem with the subprime market isnt that mortgage lenders will have less ready cash, as much as general adverse economic factors (including the subprime fallout) cutting company profits. With that, a cut in marketing spend.
The difference is, Id expect to see bigger companies hit more than smaller, the latter of which have the flexibility and efficiency to weather out these conditions. So more opportunity for expansion by SMEs, as global corporations start reigning in spend to protect shareholder interests.
2c.